Hosea 1:7 The LORD's Own Salvation

NO. 2057 INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, DECEMBER 16TH, 1888
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 2ND, 1888.

“But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.”-Hosea 1:7.

GOD is very considerate towards the messengers by whom he delivers his word to men. They are bound to deliver his word faithfully, whatever the tidings may be. Sometimes the burden of the Lord is very heavy. The prophets have to denounce woe upon woe, with terrible monotony of threatening; and then it is that God hastens to relieve them by giving them a gracious word, so that they may refresh their hearts, and not be altogether crushed beneath their load. We have an instance here of the Lord’s care for his heralds. Hosea was bound to say, in the name of the Lord, “I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away”; but when he had said that, with heavy heart and tearful eye, he was allowed to add, “But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah.” The Lord will not let our spirit fail beneath a burden which is all of grief; but he will grant us the high privilege of proclaiming grace, as well as publishing judgment. Dear brethren in Christ, if you have to preach God’s word, preach it faithfully, and abate no syllable of its stern threatenings. Woe unto him who is afraid to preach the terrors of the Lord! Woe unto the man who refuses to put his hand into the bitter box, and take out the wormwood and gall which make such salutary medicine for the souls of men! We must at times speak lightning, and prove ourselves sons of thunder. We must bring on the storm and tempest in the heart of man, if fair summertide discoursing will not touch them. For the most of men there is no going to heaven except by Weeping Cross; and we must drive them that way with God’s thundering sentences of judgment. Let us lead them by the path of sorrow to the Man of sorrows, sorrowing ourselves because it is so hard to bring them to a godly sorrow. It is at our soul’s peril that we allow a warning to lie silent. “If the watchman warn them not, they shall perish; but their blood will I require at the watchman’s hands.” Let us think of that, and give ourselves up to our Master’s work, even when it is heaviest, cheered by the fact that we have to speak of such glorious truths, such precious promises, such a gracious Christ, such a free salvation, such full pardon for the very chief of sinners, such abundant help for those that have no strength, such fatherly compassion to those that are out of the way. Our themes of joy by far outweigh our topics of grief, and we find the Lord’s service a happy one.

The connection of our text suggests the thought that there is a limit to the long-suffering of God. He bade Hosea say, “I will no more have mercy upon Israel.” He had borne with that guilty people very long, and overlooked their daring crimes; but he would do so no longer: he would give them over to the enemy, who would carry them quite away, so that Israel as a distinct monarchy should cease to be. O my hearers, God is very gracious, but his Spirit shall not always strive with you. A little more sin, and you may be over the boundary, and God may give you up. Stay, I pray you! Do not further provoke. Repent, and turn unto the Lord with full purpose of heart.

Having made that observation, I would make another, namely, that the Lord makes distinctions among guilty men according to the sovereignty of his grace. “I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will have mercy upon the house of Judah.” Had not Judah sinned too? Might not the Lord have given up Judah also! Indeed he might justly have done so, but he delighteth in mercy. Many sin, and righteously bring upon themselves the punishment due to sin: they believe not in Christ, and die in their sins. But God has mercy, according to the greatness of his heart, upon multitudes who could not be saved on any other footing but that of undeserved mercy. Claiming his royal right he says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” The prerogative of mercy is vested in the sovereignty of God: that prerogative he exercises. He gives where he pleases, and he has a right to do so, since none have any claim upon him. We are all under his rule, and by that rule we are under condemnation; and if he should leave us there, it would be strictly just; but if any be saved it is an act of pure, undeserved grace, for which he is to have all the praise.

Note, too, that even in the darkest times, when whole nations go astray from him, he still reserves unto himself a people. “I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them.” God will have a people even when those who are called his people prove unworthy of the name. There never was a night so dark but that God had a star shining through its blackness. There never was a desert so drear but God could lead a people through it, and make the wilderness rejoice. There never shall be a time in which Christ will not have a remnant according to the election of grace, who will maintain his truth and the honor of his name. Let us be comforted by this, and look for brighter and better times, however dark the days may seem to be just now. God will save his own, and by his own will keep his glory bright among men.

But now the text brings us to consider this fact, that God will save his own people in his own way. He tells us positively how he will save the house of Judah, and negatively how he will not save them. “I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” God displays his sovereignty not only in the persons saved, but in the ways whereby that salvation is wrought out.

The point which we shall consider is God’s way of saving his people, as instanced in the text; and we remark, first, that oftentimes God puts visible means aside in dealing with his people: “Not by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” Secondly, he has good reasons for doing this: he acts with infinite wisdom. Thirdly, there is a gospel in this, a gospel which has special relation to us. Oh, for a blessing from the Spirit of the Lord!

I. First, then, God Is Pleased Very Often, In Working Salvation, To Put Means Aside.

He said of Israel, “I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.” He thus struck out of the hands of his people their only defense; they had trusted in their bow, and the Lord destroyed it.

First, the Lord does this in the work of salvation by grace. Salvation is of the Lord alone. Salvation is not of human merit, for there is no such thing. Plenty of demerit you can find anywhere and everywhere, but of merit there is none. “When we have done all, we are unprofitable servants: we have done no more than it was our duty to have done.” But we have not done all. Alas! on the contrary, we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and we have left undone the things which we ought to have done, and there is no health in us. In ourselves we have neither health, help, nor hope. We are not, we cannot be, saved by our works. We dismiss the idea with an honest indignation, each one of us for himself. Neither are we saved by any good dispositions which lie dormant and latent within us, for there are no such things. There is none good, no not one. The heart is, in every case, deceitful, and desperately wicked. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. If our salvation depended upon our hearts going after God of themselves, and the motions of our nature ascending towards the Most High of themselves, it would be a hopeless case. But divine grace waiteth not for man, neither tarrieth for the sons of men. When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. “You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and in sins.” The first movement is from God to us, not from us to God. As soon expect the darkness to create the day as expect the sinner to turn his own heart to the Lord. We are saved by the Lord’s grace, not by our works; nor by our feelings, nor by our desires, nor even by our sense of need. I believe it is one object of God’s infinite wisdom in each individual case to make this doctrine clear to the understanding and the heart. Certainly it is one object of every faithful ministry. We preach down the creature, and preach up the Savior. Yet, preach as we may, self-righteousness is so natural to man, self-trust is so congenial to our proud imbecility, that we cannot get it out of men till the Holy Spirit comes. Every man his own Savior is the kind of doctrine which is popular; but to set aside our own doings is to offend many. I see before me a picture which was once before the mind of Isaiah. Our nature seems like a rainbow-coloured field of grass in the early days of summer. The golden kingcups are intermingled with flowers of every hue. What a luxuriant garden! Wait a moment! A wind comes-a hot sirocco burns its deadly way. “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.” So have we seen men glorious in their own self-righteousness, boastful of their moral purity and we have half thought, surely there is something in all this! We walk over the same field after the withering work of the Holy Ghost has been there, and men have been convinced of sin, and we see nothing but disappointment, and hear nothing but confession of failure. We see no flowers, but dead, withered grass. How soon has the glory departed! The comeliness of the field is passed away as in the twinkling of an eye!

You cannot have forgotten, some of you, when this terrible self-withering happened to you. When God’s rebukes corrected you, your beauty passed away as the moth. Before I was instructed as to myself I thought myself as good a fellow as could be found within fifty miles; but when the Spirit of God had revealed me to myself, I thought myself the basest creature within five hundred miles; or, for the matter of that, even outside or inside of hell itself. You may, perhaps, have seen a picture drawn by a cunning artist. It represents a lady, very fair and beautiful to look upon; but the picture is so contrived that you discover underneath it the form of death. That which appeared outwardly so lovely is only a veiled skeleton. Just that kind of change the Spirit of God makes upon our moral beauty: he turns it into corruption by making us see what we really are. The bones of the skeleton of depraved nature stand out through the proud flesh of our self-righteous pride. Then we cry to God for mercy. Then we give up all idea of saving ourselves. Neither bow, nor sword, nor horse, nor horsemen, are any longer our confidence. The weapons of our self-help are looked upon by us as weapons of rebellion-and they really are so; and we throw them away, and will have nothing further to do with them. The man upon whom there is found a bad coin is very earnest in declaring that it is none of his, somebody must have slipped it into his pocket. He will not own it. A little while ago he thought to himself, “What a splendid imitation it is! How well I have cheated the Queen!” Self-righteousness is nothing but a piece of counterfeit coin; and when all goes well with us, we say, “How well I have done it! How splendid is my righteousness!” But when the Spirit of God arrests us, then we are anxious to get rid of the very thing wherein we gloried. What was our righteousness we reckon to be as filthy rags-and we reckon according to truth. Thus God saves us, not by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, nor by horses, nor by horsemen, but by his grace, which comes to us freely when Jesus is made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

It is so in the actual salvation of men, and it is often so in their calling to this salvation. Was any man ever converted in the way in which he expected to be? I hardly think so. I know what you thought would happen; at least I know what many expect. They look for an interesting incident. They suppose, perhaps, that they will have a very wonderful dream; or that, going to hear a minister, there will be something very striking in the sermon which will alarm or depress them, so that they will be tempted to commit suicide, or do some other outrageous thing. Possibly, on the other hand, they half expect that there will happen a sudden death in the family, or sickness upon many, and that so they will be impressed; or, possibly, like Martin Luther with his friend Alexis, they may be walking out in a thunder-storm, and Alexis will be killed, and they will be aroused in that way. I, myself, always looked for something very remarkable, but it did not come to me. And yet something happened which was more remarkable than the most remarkable thing would have been: I simply heard the gospel command, “Look unto me, and be ye saved.” I looked and I lived; and that is all the story I have to tell you. Dear hearer, that is all the story, very likely, you will ever have to tell. You have come in here to-night, and perhaps you have even desired that something very wonderful may take place. Nothing of the sort may happen, and yet the infinite mercy of God may visit your heart and sweetly melt it. Or ever you are aware, you may say to yourself-

“I do believe, I will believe, That Jesus died for me”;

and, on a sudden, that change will come over you of which you have so often heard-by no means the physical change which you have looked for, the extravagant delirium of sorrow struggling with delight. You will simply drop into the arms of Christ, and rest in his great sacrifice, and find peace. That will be all. You will not be saved by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, nor by horses, nor by horsemen, but by a simple trust in the Lord alone. What more do you want? What more can you hope to receive?

I feel very grateful to God whenever a person attributes his conversion to me. I feel both honored and humbled. But if you are brought to the Lord Jesus, and no word of mine shall be used, but only that still small voice which speaks in solemn silence to the heart, I shall be equally pleased, so long as you are saved. If hungry souls receive the bread of heaven, I will not fret because they took it from some other hand than mine, Oh, that even now the Lord himself might come like the dew which falls in its own special way, and may he refresh your hearts unto eternal life, and fulfill this word: “I will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.”

In the next place, the same thing is true with regard to the progress of religion, and the work of revivals. Let every man work as he feels called to do, provided he follows the rules of his Lord; but we have seen revivals of which it was said at the first, “We will get up a revival.” Revivals can be got up, but are they worth the trouble? What has been the end of them all? A few years after, the result, where is it? I hear an echo say, “Where is it?” I cannot tell you what has become of it; in many cases I fear that the disappointed church has become more hard to stir than it was before. Brethren, I hopefully believe that there will soon come a deep, widespread, lasting revival of religion, and it may be it will come just as it used to in apostolic times. How did they act in Jerusalem? What did they do throughout Asia Minor? What was the apostles’ plan? I cannot find, for the life of me, that they did anything else but preach the gospel, while at the same time they went from house to house, and held meetings for prayer; and thus the kingdom of Christ came. They did not work up a revival, but they prayed it down. They simply waited upon the Lord in supplication and service. They might have tried other plans had they been so unwise as to think of them. They would never have tolerated the dodges of the present period, the adaptations of the gospel, and the degrading of it, by secular lectures, entertainments, and so forth. They never dreamed of keeping abreast of the times with liberal philosophical teaching; but I recollect that Paul was so resolutely ignorant as to say, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Standing all together the chosen preachers of the first days could aver- “We preach Christ crucified.” They could all say that, and say it emphatically. All the men of the college of the apostles stuck to that theme; and see the effect!

“Nations, the learned and the rude, Were by these heavenly arms subdued, While Satan raging at his loss, Abhorred the doctrine of the cross.”

I wish all the churches would try this old way again, for it seems to me that the world will never be subdued to Christ by the wooden sword of reason, but only by the true Jerusalem blade of a gospel revealed from heaven. Until we take up such methods as our Lord has ordained, and make our sole confidence to be in the Lord our God, who “will not save by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen,” we shall never see great results. Grand preaching, fine preaching, eloquent preaching! Yes; but the apostle was afraid of it, lest the faith of his converts should stand in the wisdom of men. Though he could have spoken with the tongue of an orator, he did not use the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be of none effect.

“But, surely,” cries one, “we must have some advancement in theology. We ought to know more than our old fathers did.” This is the pride of our hearts. Would you advance beyond the apostles? Into what can you advance but into the ditch of error? They did not crave for an advance in the apostolic times; but they were satisfied to speak over again “all the words of this life.” They remained true to the “faith once for all delivered to the saints,” and they found salvation in this primitive revelation. Why should we go gadding elsewhere? Depend upon it God will not save men by advanced thought, nor by eloquent discoursings, nor by literary beauties: he “will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.”

I believe that the same great truth will be made apparent as to the establishment of the truth of God in this land. How my soul has been burdened with the many that have turned aside, and the few that remain faithful to the covenant God of Israel! These last are not so very few as some would make them out to be, but yet they are sadly scant in number. God has reserved unto himself seven thousand that have not bowed their knee to Baal, Oh, that there were a thousand times as many! But we have striven with all our might to bear our outspoken testimony for the old faith, and we have hopefully thought, that many would rally to the cry; but it is not so, nor, perhaps, is it God’s mind that it should be. Men of eminence have held their tongues, and brethren once ardent for the gospel have practically gone over to the enemy. I am sure that the Lord will confound the adversary, and bring forth his truth as the noonday; but it may not be as we would suggest. He has his own way; let us watch for him to make bare his arm. Perhaps those who are faithful must stand alone, must bear their witness in solitary places, and be the objects of general derision. Perhaps for many a year the heavenly fire will only smoulder amidst the ashes. But it is all right; truth shall hold the crown of the causeway yet, and Christ’s own word shall lift its head from the waves that have washed over it, and be the fairer for the washing; for the truth hath God’s might with it, and it must prevail. He “will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” We must be content to subside; to be nothing; to be never heard of; to die. So be it if the truth shall live. This will be better than if we formed a numerous band, and carried everything by majorities, and set up a strong party, and won the day: for then man might be great, and God be forgotten, but now he shall be all in all. When you have seen how I fail, and those that are with me, and how plans and efforts are futile, you will all the more clearly see what the Lord can do.

Dear friends, I would make one other application of these words, and I trust it may be profitable to you. The text has a voice to God’s people in the day of trouble. I may be addressing godly people who are in most terrible distress. You have faith in God that he will bring you out of your affliction. Maintain that faith; and if for a long time no deliverance should come, still maintain it. Perhaps you have hopes from a certain quarter. Those hopes may come to nothing: that cistern will leak. You have another friend to whom you can apply. Yes, you can apply; that is all that will happen, for that tank also holds no water. When you have tried all the cisterns, be wise enough to recollect the fountain. It may be that there will come a day when every door will be fast closed, and you will see no way of relief whatever; but bethink you that then there will remain the one way, which you should have followed at the first. In such an hour let my text speak with you: “He will save them by the Lord their God, and he will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” What a glorious vision is that of Jehovah alone with his own right hand getting to himself the victory! When Israel came out of Egypt, what armies vanquished Pharaoh? Who fought on Israel’s side to bring them out of Egypt? Nobody. Then there was no human victor to extol, no human warrior to praise; but clear and plain the hymn rang out- “Sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.” If there had been an ally with God the glory might have been divided; but as it was, the Lord alone was exalted in that day. When Israel fought with Amalek it is evident that the battle never depended upon their fighting, for-

“While Moses stood with arms spread wide, Success was found on Israel’s side; But when through weariness they failed, That moment Amalek prevailed!”

so that the real fighting was done by those uplifted hands that brought down the divine success, and made Joshua mighty in the battle. When Israel crossed the Jordan, and came into the promised land to fight the Canaanites, the very first conquest was that of Jericho. Did they bring battering-rams to the walls? Did they gradually throw down the structure with their axes and picks? Oh, no! they compassed the city seven days, and God made the walls to fall when the people gave a shout. In the memorable deliverances of God’s people, God has said to the second cause, “Stand back; let my glory come to the front.” The bow, the sword, the battle, the horses, and the horsemen, he has sent them all about their business; and then the Lord their God has led the van, and his enemies have been scattered like the dust of the threshing-floor. When he takes up the quarrel of his covenant he makes short work of it, for “the Lord is a man of war; Jehovah is his name;” and when he lays bare his arm to defend the cause of his people, he wants no helpers. Now can you lean on the Lord? Can you grasp the Invisible? Can you lean alone on God, and forego all helpers? Can you grasp his bared arm, and let all things else go? O man of God, if thou canst, thou shalt glorify God, and thou shalt surely be delivered! If thou must have thy bow and thy sword, or else give up hope, then the battle rests with thyself. How canst thou plead the promise of God? But when thou puttest the bow aside, and the sword is hung on the wall, then canst thou go to him who is better to thee than bow and sword, and rest in him, and he will work gloriously, so that his own name shall be magnified, and thou shalt be blessed. I pray the Holy Spirit to apply that truth to any heart here that is heavy by reason of sore conflict at this time. Oh, for grace to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him, for in his own time and way he will work, and none shall hinder him.

So much upon our first point, that oftentimes God puts the means aside in dealing with his people.

II. But now, secondly, God has Good Reasons For This.

I shall very briefly touch upon this theme. The Lord is full of wisdom, and his doings are ever prudent. He always has good reasons for everything, but one of the things we should never do is, to ask his reasons. It is an unreasonable thing to ask God to give reasons for what he does. His answer to arrogant questioners is- “ May I not do as I will with my own?” Oh for grace to be silent where God is silent! Is he not God, and we worms of the dust? Who shall presume to ask him why or what he does? Better far to say, “It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good.” If he never gave us a reason for what he did, we ought to be well content to leave all with him, knowing that he must do that which is best and wisest.

But, so far as in humility we may dare to look, we have looked, and we believe that the Lord’s ways are intended, first, to prevent all boasting. How prone we are to self-esteem! How wickedly we rob God to honor ourselves! If God uses us-if God uses any sort of means-yet there is no credit to the means which he uses, but to himself only. I read the other day of a certain writer who says, “I wrote the four hundred pages of this book with one pen.” Where is that pen? Does anybody want it? If it were advertised as an exhibition, I should not go to see it. I care a deal more for the hand that wrote, and for what was written, than for the pen with which it was written. A common goose-quill it was in the case referred to, and no more. Ah, how plainly can we see where the quill came from! God uses men for a certain purpose, as we use a hammer, or a saw, or a gimlet. Suppose that when we had done with such tools, and put them back into the box, they all began to cry, “See what we have done! What a sharp saw I was! What a heavy hammer I was! Did I not hit the nail on the head?” Such boastings would be foolishness. Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? We do not judge that the instrument ought to take credit to itself; but it does so in our case whenever it can, and this is a great injury to us. Some of us might have enjoyed a much larger blessing, if we had not grown top-heavy with the blessing we already enjoyed. God saved a soul or two by you, my dear friend, and you began to rub your hands, and think that you were something better than an angel. You were running away with God’s glory, and thus ending your own influence. Often this is the cause of the drying up of hopeful usefulness. The instrument began to exalt itself, and so the Lord put up the bow, the sword, the horses, and the horsemen, and then all men saw what powerless things these were. Oh, that the Lord may never feel compelled to leave you and me to ourselves! Oh, that he may deign to honor us by using us to his glory. I had far rather die than stand a withered tree in the vineyard of the Lord, and yet, what better should. I be if he withdrew the dew of his grace from me?

Next, he does this to take us off from all reliance upon second causes and outward means. You people of God, the process of weaning is, with you, full often a long and tedious one; but if ever it is accomplished, your faith will rejoice, even as Abraham made a great feast at Isaac’s weaning.

My dear hearers, some of you are not saved yet, and I will tell you what happens with many of you. You come here on Sabbath days, and, to Monday prayer-meetings, and Thursday services, and I am glad to see you. You also read your Bibles; I am glad of that. You say a thing you call a prayer: I do not know whether I am glad about that. But I will tell you what you are doing. You are making yourselves quite comfortable, as if, by some singular process, salvation would insensibly penetrate you by your being found in good company, hearing the Word, and so on. Let me remind you that these things were never prescribed as the way of salvation. I do not want you to run away from hearing the Word, or from the use of the means; but I do want to assure you that, if you trust in these means, you will be disappointed in the result. These are mere pitchers, but they will not quench your thirst if there is no water in them. Look to God, not to your minister. Get to Jesus himself rather than to the sacred Book. Remember how the Savior puts it-for this is not a wrested reading- “Ye search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: but ye will not come to me that ye might have life.” Pass beyond the Scriptures to the Christ whom the Scriptures reveal. Do not stay in the porch of the Word, but enter the house of the truth itself, which is Christ Jesus. It is not singing hymns and saying prayers; it is getting to the Lord in praise and really coming to Christ in prayer. I wish you not to stay away from any of the services; I wish you to be where the means may be blessed to you; but the means of themselves cannot save you. There is nothing in preaching- there is nothing in public service that can mechanically bring salvation to you; and do not expect it. “Ye must be born again!” You must distinctly go to Christ for yourselves, for the Lord saves men by the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will not save them by books, and prayer-meetings, and sermons any more than he would save Judah by the bow, the sword, the battle, the horses, and the horsemen. The Lord set aside horse and horsemen to bring the people to himself; and often he lays people up so that they cannot get out to hear the minister, or he drafts them away to some portion of the country where they get no sermon, that then they may go to the God of all true sermons, and may find salvation in Jesus Christ himself.

Again, beloved, the Lord blesses his people himself that he may endear himself to them. He reveals himself to them apart from other things, that they may see him and know what he can do. You do not know to the full what God can do so long as he keeps within the bounds of the ordinary means, or you feel that you are well provided for by ordinary methods. You are apt to forget that God provides for you, because your quarterly allowance is received so regularly. Now, suppose that your business fails. Ah! then God must provide for you: then you will see what God is doing. Suppose that, instead of being in one place, you should be kicked about like a football, and still the Lord should give you rest in himself: then you will see what he can do. When we are in fine feather, and everybody is kind to us, we hardly know the lovingkindness of the Lord, it is so smothered up by secondary agencies. When we get quite alone, and nobody is kind to us, and we approach to the Lord in solitary trust, and prove his power to comfort us, then we know more of what he is in himself to his people. The night reveals the stars, and sorrow and loneliness manifest the Lord’s presence. But, beloved, God does this to endear himself to us, that seeing more of him we may love him more, and may say to ourselves, “What a gracious God he is to take notice of me, to interpose for me, to come and, by his own mighty power, do for me what the ordinary ways and means fail to do!” In this way also the Lord often gives a double blessing-a blessing in the gift, and a blessing in the way of giving.

Now look at Hezekiah’s case. Supposing Hezekiah had gone out to fight Sennacherib, and had defeated him, a certain number of the inhabitants of Jerusalem would have been killed in the battle; but when the Lord delivered Hezekiah without a battle, then there were no funerals in Jerusalem. Nobody was wounded; nobody was slain. So frequently God not only blesses us by the favor given, but by the way in which the gift is sent: he saves us from pains which any other method would have involved. The Lord often spares us the humiliation of being dependent upon a person who would have made his patronage bitter to us. If we had received the blessing through some great one, he might have crowed over us all the rest of his life. I like that bit in Abraham’s life when the king of Sodom offered him the property which he had captured. Abraham had a right to it, for he had taken it in war; but he said, “I will not take from a thread to a shoe-latchet, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich.” No, no; the servant of the Lord would not have a king talk as if he had been the maker of the Lord’s own servant. God himself will so help you, so bless you, so carry you through, that you shall not have to take off your hat to any king of Sodom, neither shall he be able to go up and down the city and say, “I have made Abram rich.” God will put the king of Sodom away with the horses and the horsemen, and double the mercy to you by handing it out with his own hand after his own way.

I think that the Lord does this also to encourage you in all future troubles: he has rescued you in a way beyond means, without means, and even against means, and therefore you cannot be in a condition from which he will be unable to rescue you. If you should come to be more friendless and more feeble than you now are-what then? Are your resources within yourself or dependent upon friends? If so, you are in an evil case. But if all your supplies are in the Lord, you are no worse off than you used to be. When the Lord strips you bare of your own garments, then you can go to his wardrobe and put on the raiment which he has provided. You cannot wear God’s clothes while you glory that you are wearing your own. When want has swept your table, then all the bread on it will come from your God. When the Lord has brought you down to the bare rock, then you can go no lower, and there is a chance to build a house which will stand against flood and wind. Be reliant upon him who can work by means, but can equally well work without means whenever it seemeth good in his sight! In such confidence you will find security against all ill weathers. The Lord changes not, and therefore you shall not be consumed.

III. My time is done, or else I was going to say, thirdly, There Is A Gospel In This Text for those here present.

I can only hint at this in a few words.

The first gospel is that salvation is possible in every case. Notice, “I will save them.” What can stand against a divine “I will”? With God nothing is impossible. If there be nothing to help him, what does it matter? He does not need help. He expressly abjures the aid of a creature when he says, “I will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” My dear hearer, whoever you may be, there is hope in your case: if God saves, then you can be saved. If you had to save yourself, you would not be saved; but as there is nothing wanted of you, but God worketh salvation with his own right hand, your case is hopeful. How clear is this! And how bright with comfort!

Next, salvation is to be sought of God alone. Do not go wandering about to the second cause. Go straight to the Lord himself, and go at once. Straightforward is the best running in the world. Go straightforward to your God, your Savior. Let there be no waiting for tears, feelings, repentance, sanctification, or anything else; but arise at once, and go to your God, and for Christ’s sake plead with him to have mercy upon you at this moment. As salvation does not necessarily come through the outward means, if I address any here who have neglected the outward means, let them come away to God at once, though they have neglected his courts, profaned his day, and despised his ministers. You came in here with no idea of worshipping God, but only just to see the place, and what the preacher is like. Never mind, look to the Lord Jesus Christ straight away! With these eyes that are so blinded, look! If you cannot see, it may be that in your obedient attempt to look, the Lord will give you sight. He does not command you to see, but he does command you to look to him and be saved: so that, if you turn your eyes towards Jesus, though they be sightless eyeballs, he will make them see. If you will trust in Christ you may cast your guilty soul on him at this moment. Why should you not do so? Then for you the rain will be over and gone, and you will see the bright light in the clouds. Instead of the dark and dismal winter of doubt, you shall have a summer-time of hope and comfort. These dreary weeks of cold despair shall give place to a season in which heaven and earth shall blend in your experience in a joy unspeakable. The Lord grant it, for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

Hosea 2:5-7 The Backslider's Way Hedged Up

NO. 590 - DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 18TH, 1864,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
 

She said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.”-Hosea 2:5-7.

Great and grievous was the apostacy of the seed of Abraham from the Lord their God. They had been chosen by special grace from among all people, and had the high honor to receive the oracles of God; yet they were bent on backsliding from God, and were unfaithful to the Most High, The gods of the surrounding heathen were constantly a snare unto them, and they forsook the only living and true God to prostrate themselves before blocks of wood and stone. Though chastened a thousand times they learned nothing by the rod; and though as frequently forgiven and visited with mercy, the holy bonds of gratitude did not bind them to their God. As an abandoned woman leaves a kind and tender husband for the base love of the vilest of the vile, even so both Israel and Judah played the harlot towards the Lord who had espoused them in infinite love. Yet God has not even now written a bill of divorcement, or cast away the people whom he did foreknow. Through eighteen hundred years the sons of Israel have had to wander to and fro without a settled dwelling-place, yet God hath not utterly given them up or broken his covenant with them; for the day shall come when Israel shall return, when again she shall be called Hephzi-bah, and her land Beulah. Come, long expected day! Appear, thou glorious King of the Jews! and thou, O Judah, return from thy captivity, shake thyself from the dust, put on thy beautiful garments, and salute the Lord, thine Ishi, thy tender, loving husband.

Beloved brethren and sisters, the apostacy of the children of Israel has been recorded for our learning; for, as they were prone to wander, so are we: and the methods by which God brought them back of old are precisely those which he uses with his erring children at the present day. Instead of wondering at Israel’s wickedness, let us examine ourselves, and repent for our own sins; and while we see the hand of God upon them, let us learn to admire those methods of unerring wisdom by which divine love preserves the ransomed ones from going down into the pit.

In considering our text, my aim will be to be used as the Holy Spirit’s instrument to arouse, instruct, and restore backsliders. Such wanderers may be present now. Their first love they have lost, and their zeal is quenched. There may be some here who have gone further still, and have forsaken the Church of God altogether, having given up their profession and all attendance upon divine worship. O that the voice of Israel’s God may be heard in their hearts this morning, crying, “If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers ; yet return again to me, saith the Lord.”

I. We commence the consideration of the passage before us with the remark, that While Sinful Men Are In Prosperity They Pervert The Mercies Of God To Their Own Injury, making them instruments of sin and weapons of warfare against God.

While the children of Israel enjoyed an abundance of temporal comforts they ascribed all these blessings to their false gods. Hear the wicked and treacherous words- “I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.” Oh! base ingratitude to their bounteous Jehovah! Infamous ascription of his glory to graven images! Prosperous sinners make three great mistakes. At the outset they give their temporal mercies the first place in their hearts. Because their business prospers, they do not consider that their soul is perishing; because there is enough on the table for themselves and for their children, they forget that their soul is famished for lack of heaven’s bread. They put the shadows of time before the realities of eternity. They say, “ We must live:” but they forget that they must die. So long as the current glides smoothly and the gentle flow of the river of their joy is undisturbed, they forget the cataract red with the blood of souls adown whose tremendous steeps those treacherous waters will soon hurry them. Is it not a gross mistake to attach so much importance to this poor body of clay, and forget the priceless jewel of the immortal soul? Why think so much of a world in which we only tarry for a few evil years, and neglect the world where we must dwell for ever? Such folly is most shameful in one who was once a professed Christian, because he knew, or professed to know, somewhat of the superiority of the eternal over the temporal; of the vanity of things earthly and the glory of things heavenly. Yet because things go well with him-because his wife is in health, his children blooming, his house well furnished, his property increasing, he saith, “Soul, take thine ease,” and disturbs not himself though heaven is black with lowering tempest, and the light of God’s countenance is hidden from him. The loss of God’s presence the man thinks to be a trifle, because he is succeeding in the world; as though a man should count it nothing to lose his life if be may but keep his raiment whole to be buried in. O fools, thus to put the last things first, and the first things last.

One error leads to another, and hence such people hold their temporal things upon a wrong tenure. Do observe how many times the word “my” is found in the text. “Give me my bread and my water, and my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.” Why, they were not hers but God’s, for the Lord expressly claims them all in the ninth verse, and threatens to take them all away. Backslider, there was a time when thou didst confess thyself to be God’s steward, when thou saidst, “I am not my own, but bought with a price;” yet now thou hast so set thy heart upon worldly things, that all thy talk runs in this fashion my horses, my houses, my lands, my profits, my children, and an endless list of things which thou thinkest to be altogether thine. Why, man, they are not thine; they are only lent thee for a season; thou art but God’s under-bailiff, thou hast possession only as tenant-at-will, or as a borrower holding a loan. The Lord claims even now the prior right to all thou hast, and the day shall come when he shall show thee this; for if he have mercy upon thee-and I pray he may-he may take these from thee one by one, and make thee cry out in abject wretchedness of soul, “O God, forgive me, that I made these my gods, and claimed them as mine own.”

Then further, backsliders are apt to ascribe their prosperity and their mercies to their sins. I have even heard one say, “Ever since I gave up a profession of religion, I have made more headway in business than I did before.” Some apostates have boasted, “Since I broke through puritanical restraint, and went out into worldly company, I have been better in spirits, and better in purse than ever I was before;” thus they ascribe the mercies which God has given them to their sins, and wickedly bow down before their lusts, as Israel did before the golden calf, and cry, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought us up out of the land of Egypt!” Sinner, if you did but know it, a long-suffering God has given you these things. Even to you who will perish, he has given many mercies as your portion in this life, seeing that you have no heritage hereafter. O take heed, lest ye be fattened upon them as beasts for the slaughter. Unto you, backsliders, he has given these things to try you, to see how far you will go, to what extravagances of ingratitude you will descend, and how far you will despise his tender means. O backslider, is it not marvellous that God has not long ago stretched you upon a bed of sickness, when you consider how much you have brought dishonor upon Christ’s name, how you have vexed God’s people, how you have made the wicked open their mouths against God? Is it not a wonder that he did not take you away with a stroke, when you first forsook him? And yet, see-instead of this, he multiplies your mercies. Does he not as good as say, “Return unto thy rest, for I have dealt bountifully with thee. I am married unto thee, and therefore I treat thee as a husband treats his spouse. Although I might well proclaim a divorce against thee, yet since I have betrothed thee unto me for ever, my goodness and mercy shall not leave thee even in thy sins.” Herein lies the gross mistake of the backslider-that he will attribute his present happiness and comfort to his sins rather than to the forbearance of God. Here are three great errors, and oh! I fear they are so deadly, that unless God interpose in providence and in grace, they will be as fatal as the three darts which Joab thrust through the heart of Absalom as he was dangling by his proud hair in the wood of Ephraim. I fear that the goodly Babylonish garment, and the talents of silver, and the wedge of gold, will ruin you as they did Achan of old. These three falsehoods, like the three daughters of the horseleech, will never be satisfied until they have utterly destroyed your soul. You will be wrapt in fine linen and fare sumptuously, and all this shall but ensure you the torments of the damned. Go to, now, weep and howl for the miseries which shall come upon you: your riches are corrupted; your garments are moth-eaten; your gold and silver are cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. Hear ye the word of the Lord by the mouth of his servant Peter, tremble at it, and be afraid: “If after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them, But it is happened unto them according to the proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.”

II. Let us turn from this gloomy side of our subject, and observe with gratitude that The Lord Interposes Adversity In Order To Bring Back His Wandering Children.

Let us consider for a moment the hindrances which a God of love frequently puts in the way of his elect when they backslide from him. Here we have the matter opened up to our attention. “Therefore, behold I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.” Here you see that it is an unexpected hindrance, for it is placed right in the man’s way- “ I will hedge up thy way “-it was his way, his habit; he had fallen into it, and he meant to keep on; but suddenly he met with an unlooked for obstacle. Just as farmers, when a public path runs through their field and persons begin to wander too much into the grass or corn, will put up bushes to keep the public to the path; or just as husbandmen to keep their cattle in their fields, make thick thorn-hedges which the beasts cannot break through, so God puts a thorn-hedge of troubles right in the way of his chosen to stop them in their sins. This hedge may be placed in your way in different shapes, perhaps you will meet with it this day. I see the hand of God as it touches the elect but erring man; suddenly business grows slack; customers fall off one by one; bad debts multiply; bankruptcy stares him in the face, where he had enough to lavish on his pleasures he has not enough to supply his needs. A mighty famine has arisen in the land of sin and he begins to be in want. He little expected this. If anybody had told him when he was so proudly driving that fast-trotting horse along the streets that he would come to hard work, he would have laughed him to scorn. He thought he should live a millionaire, but now he seems far more likely to die a pauper. Or it may be that sudden sickness has fallen upon his once strong and healthy person. He could drink with the most drunken and no voice could ring so loud as his in the midnight revelry; but now he is paralyzed, he has lost the use of half his limbs; or perhaps some internal complaint has weakened him and made him totter along the road in constant jeopardy of sudden death. Now the smooth road is rough indeed and the world has lost its many charms. Ah! sinner, the sound of music is hushed for thee, and the joys of the flowing bowl are thine no more. Thy foaming tankards, thy wantonness and chambering are gone, mercy has rent them from thee in love to thy soul. Possibly the hedge is made of other thorns: perhaps the man’s children sickened; there are many funerals in the house in quick succession. That first-born son, the expected heir, the joy of his father’s heart, falls like a withered flower; his wife is cut off as a lily snapped from its stalk, and he stands weeping, a widowed husband, a childless man. Any of these ways, and thousands more which I need not here recount, are God’s methods of building walls across the way of those whom he ordains to bless. When the man breaks through one hedge, the Lord of mercy will build another, and maintains his hedges at such a degree of strength that the bullock which is most accustomed to the yoke shall not be able to push through. O backslider, the divine finger can touch thee in the very tenderest part, and though up to this moment thou hast boasted, “Nobody can make me wretched; nothing shall ever make me fret,” yet lie can shut you up in such despair that none can remove the heavy bar. Think of what your brain may yet become -it is cool and calculating now, and thou canst clearly see that thy fellows are left behind in the race of competition-but remember how soon an unseen cause may soften that brain into imbecility, or excite it into incipient insanity! How soon may that boasted brain become like a burning sea throbbing with waves of fire! Beware lest such a visitation become the prelude of the wrath eternal; my prayer for thee is, that more gentle means may bring thee to repentance; but to that thou wilt never come unless the Lord hedge up thy way with thorns.

Observe that it was a very disappointing impediment. While the prosperous sinner was securely pursuing his way he was stopped. “Why,” saith the man, “if it bad not been for that, I should have made a fortune.” “Why did death come just when my fair girl looked so lovely in the bloom of opening womanhood, and when my dear boy had grown so engaging that his company was my delight?-ah! this is trouble indeed. To meet with misfortune just when I had built that new house, and held my head so high, and expected to see my daughters so respectably married-why, this is very disappointing,” and the man kicks; and though once he professed to be a child of God, yet it is painfully possible that he is ready to curse God and die. But, if he knew-oh! if he knew the divine motive, he would thank God for his troubles on bended knees. You will remember that story of the painter in St. Paul’s. When on high he painted his picture upon the ceiling, he went backward upon the stage to look at it, and was so engrossed with his occupation, that he was just on the edge of the stage and in great danger of being dashed to pieces by a fall from that dizzy height. A friend saw him, and knowing that if he called out to him he would be startled, and thus his fall might be hastened, he took up a brush full of paint and threw it at the picture; the desired effect was produced, for the painter in great anger rushed forward to upbraid him, and thus his life was spared. God seeing you painting a fair scene of life and happiness on earth, suddenly spoils it all, you rush forward, crying out against him; but oh! what reason have you to thank him for that disappointment which has disappointed Satan of his prey and saved your soul!

Moreover, what painful hindrances our heavenly Father often uses. He hedges the sinner’s path not with rhododendrons and azaleas, not with roses and laurels, but with thorns. Prickly thorns which curse the soil and tear the flesh are God’s instrument of restraint. Nothing but a thorn hedge would have stayed the man: he was so madly set upon his present course that he would dash through anything else; but God, whose eternal mercy has marked that man out as a special object of love, uses the most effectual remedies, and plants a fence of thorns. Are you smarting this morning-so smarting that you wish you had never been born? Do you feel so much the cuts and lashes of evil fortune that you would sooner end your existence than continue any longer as you are? I bless God for this, if you are one of his children, for it is thus, and thus only, that you will be made to change your ways.

Furthermore, the fence is effectual if the thorn-hedge will not suffice: it is written, “I will make a wall.” There are some so desperate in sin that they will break through ordinary restraints; then a wall shall be tried through which there is no breaking, over which there is no climbing. Ah, backslider! backslider! perhaps you have already broken through the thorn-hedge, your trials have not been sanctified. I have known some who have had enough trials, one would think to have melted a heart of adamant, and yet they have set their faces like a flint against God, and gone on worse than ever. “Who is Jehovah, that I should obey him?” said Pharaoh, when he was vexed with many plagues; and so have you said. God, I trust, will not destroy you as he did Pharaoh, but he will break, one way or another, the iron sinew of your proud neck; for when it comes to a wrestle between God and you, you may be sure of a fall. The Lord never was defeated yet even by the stoutest adversary, and he will not in your case be frustrated in his design. If you be really one of his chosen, you shall meet with an affliction such as perhaps you never heard of in any other man; and if nought but this will stop you, he will invent some new form of disease, some fresh method of pain in order to get at your soul. If you cannot be saved by the gentle wind, he will send the storm; if this suffice not, he will try the hurricane, and if you will not run into port even then, tornado shall follow tornado till you are broken to pieces like a wreck, and compelled to swim to the Rock of Ages for rescue. These are but parts of his ways, and even his hard things are full of mercy. The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel, but the cruel things of God are full of tender mercy. He only uses these methods because nothing else will do, and he would sooner that you should enter into heaven with every bone broken, than that you should descend into hell with the full use of your powers.

III. In the third place-you would think that the sinner would now stop, but instead of it, according to the text, Even Though God Walls Up The Way Of Sin, Men Will Try To Follow It, But In The Chosen This Resolve Will Be In Vain.

“She shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them.” Do you see the man, he has suffered such loss that he cannot find the means to sin as he used to do; where he had money to spend to indulge himself, he now finds an empty purse, but yet he tries to do his worst; lie goes up and down that wall to see if there be not a hole in it somewhere; he tries to scramble over it where there is a projecting stone-he climbs half-way up, and falling, cuts his hands, but he will try again and again. He runs all along that thorn-hedge and looks and looks again for a gap, and oh! if he could but find one; if he could but escape from God’s boundaries; if he could but scrape enough money together to have another debauch; if he could find just enough to play the gentleman again; but he cannot, he has no means whatever to indulge his sin. Perhaps the case runs another way: God has taken away from the man all the pleasure of sin. He cannot be so satisfied as he used to be with his money. As lie puts it into the till he despises it; and when he sees it accumulating at his bankers it only brings him care and no content as once it did. His children turn out one by one a curse to him. In business everything seems determined to plague him. Whereas at the theater he could gaze and listen with ecstasy, the whole affair is now tame and dull. Those wines so full of flavour, have now through his satiety lost their usual charm. Let him do what he will, the world is all a blank and wretchedness for him. Like Tiberius he would give a mint of gold to any one who would invent him a new pleasure or restore the vigor of the old; but no, the thorn-hedge is too well made, the Great Husbandman has planted it too well; the sinner would become a spiritual suicide but he cannot, let him desire it as he may. He is desperately set on destruction as though it were to be desired. O sinner, how is this-how has the fall spoilt us that we should be so enamoured of our own destruction? O my God, what a creature is man! though he knows that sin will be his ruin, yet he hugs it as though it were his chief mercy, heaps to himself destruction as though it were gold, and digs for his own ruin as for hid treasure. Oh! if the righteous were half as intent in seeking after goodness as the wicked are in hunting after sin, how much more active would they be! If we were half as strongly set upon the things of God as sinners are set upon their own ways and their own pleasures, we should have no waverers, no timid, cowardly spirits. Truly this love of sin is so strange, that if we did not see it in ourselves we should wonder at it; but Christian, this is in you as much as in the worst of men; you, too, if it had not been for divine mercy, would have plunged on from bad to worse. If Omnipotence itself had not seized the reins and turned us into the way of truth, we should at this moment have been dashing on in the road of sin-I say if Omnipotence itself had not interposed. It was not the minister, it was not conscience, it was not merely providence- it was more than this-Jehovah’s own right arm threw back the horse on its haunches and cast the rider to the ground, as he did Saul at Damascus, or else we should have hastened on to our destruction and perished through the hardness of our hearts. Let us sing unto him whose mighty mercy has rescued us, and let us pity those whom the restraints of providence cannot bind, who will if they can leap through stone walls to have their way and their sin. Thus then, dear friends, we have presented to you the deplorable picture of the sinner infatuated, perfectly infatuated and drunken with the love of sin and enmity to God, and mercy itself, so far as we have gone, foiled of its purpose. The thorn-hedge not enough-the stone wall not enough-what shall come now?

IV. Our next business is to consider That The Backslider’s Failure Is Followed By A Blessed Result.

The hunt was very arduous, but the greedy hunter has missed his prey, and there he sits weary with the chase and ashamed of himself. What comes of it? Do observe it, for the result is one which I hope you and I know already. “Then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now.” O Lord! teach some who are here this morning to pray this prayer.

Observe here is repentance attended with sorrow. The poor creature in this case feels, deeply feels to the very soul, the wretchedness of her condition. She is in so bad a plight, that though she had despised her former state, she now confesses it to be better.

Observe that it is an active repentance. It is not merely “I will return,” but “I will go and return.” When the grace of God sets a backslider upon returning, he will stir up all the powers of his soul to seek after God. He cries, “My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say more than they that watch for the morning.” There is much earnestness in a sinner seeking Christ, but, if possible, there is more in a backslider returning from the error of his ways; for he has not only the guilt of sin to mourn over, but the double guilt of having despised the Savior, of having known the way of righteousness and having turned from it. Here are two spurs to make him speed on in his course.

Observe, dear friends, that the confession which this poor soul makes of folly is one which is sustained by the best of reasons. She says, “Then was it better with me than now.” Let us see whether this is not true with you. Well, backslider, what have you gained by it after all?

Have you gained anything more comfortable than the light of your Father’s face. You once could say, “Abba, Father !” you rejoiced to know that God was at peace with you; you were reconciled to him by the death of his Son. Now God is angry with you, your fears tell you that he has forgotten to be gracious. What can make up for this loss?

When God lights a candle, what brightness is in the room; but when God’s candle is gone, where is the sun, and where the moon? They give no light to you. Before, when you were in your right senses, you had the privilege of going to the throne of grace, you could tell your wants before God, and spread your sorrows there, but you have no throne of grace to go to now. Why, you scarcely dare pray. As for your friends, you would not like to tell them your troubles. Poor prodigal, what sorry friends are those who waited on you in your days of wealth; they sat with their legs under your mahogany, and drank your wine while you had any-but you know that you would be a fool to expect any help from them, now that you need it. Your lovers have forsaken you, and those who once were so kind-where is their love now? Do I see one among you who has been cast off by her companion in sin and shame! Ah, woman! Poor wretched woman! hast thou been made to feel that smart so common to those who sin as thou hast done, cast into the street by him who first decoyed thee by his fair promises of love? Thy case is but one of many, and there be thousands who find that the world knows not what faithfulness means; first sin deludes, deceives, and pretends to love, and then afterwards it casts off its victims, Ah! you had a Father’s house to go to, and a Father’s mercy to plead; but you have not it now: it was better with you then than now. And then, you had God’s promises to fall back upon. If you had any trouble you opened your Bible, and there was a passage to cheer you; when you had losses, the cheering words exactly met your case; but now that Book is full of fire, it flashes lightning upon you as you read it, there is not a promise there which smiles on you; your fears whisper that the treasury of God is shut against you. Once you had communion with Christ Jesus-ah! now I touch a tender string-you did sit at the banqueting table of Christ; unless you were awfully deceived and a gross hypocrite, you could say, “He hath kissed me with the kisses of his mouth.” After this, how couldst thou go to the door of that deceiver Madame Wanton! How is this? O soul, if thou hast ever known the love of Christ, I am sure thou wilt say, “It was better with me then than now.” What can the world afford you comparable to fellowship with Jesus? One hour upon his bosom is worth ten thousand years in the palaces and courts of the world’s wealth and royalty, and you know that it is so. There is no room to entertain a comparison for a moment.

“What peaceful hours you once enjoyed, How sweet their memory still, But they have left an aching void The world can never fill.”

O that your repentance, fixed upon such reasons as these, may be deep! may you make a confession of your extreme folly, and now fall down before God and find mercy!

To close this point, this repentance was acceptable. It is not often that a husband is willing to take back his wife when she has so grossly sinned, as the metaphor here implies; and yet observe that God is willing to receive the sinner, though his sin is even more aggravated. By the mouth of Jeremiah he speaks these words- “Return unto me, for I am married unto thee.” I do not know anything which should make the backslider’s heart break like the doctrine of God’s immutable love to his people. Some say that if we preach that “whom once he loves he never leaves, but loves them to the end,” it will be an inducement to man to sin. Well I know man is very vile, and he can turn even love itself into a reason for sinning, but where there is as much as even one spark of grace, a man cannot do that. A child does not say, “I will offend my father because he loves me ;” it is not even in fallen human nature generally, unless inspired by the devil to find motives for sin in God’s love, and certainly no backsliding child of God can say “I will continue in sin that grace may abound.” They who do so show that they are reprobates and their damnation is just. But the backslider, who is a child of God at the bottom, will, methinks, feel no cord so strong to hold him back from sin as this. Backslider, I hope it will also be a golden chain to draw you to Christ. Jesus meets you, meets you this morning. You were excommunicated. You were driven out from among God’s people with shame, but Jesus meets you, and pointing to the wounds which he received in the house of his friends at your hands, he nevertheless says, “Return unto me, for I am married unto thee.” It is a relationship which thou hast broken, and it might legally be broken for ever if he willed it ; but he does not will it, for he hates to put away. Thou art married to Jesus. Come back to thy first husband, for he is thy husband still! The fountain which washed thee once can wash thee again. “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall as wool.” The robe of righteousness which covered thee once can cover thee again ; though thou hast cast it from thee with scorn, yet still it is thine, and the Father bids his servants bring forth the best robe and put it on thee. Come to me ! Thou hast forgotten the Lord, but he has not forgotten thee; thou lovest sin, but he will change thy will, and set thy heart upon himself, for he is determined that thou shalt be his for ever. Is not this a soul-melting doctrine ? If there be so much as a spark of spiritual life in you, methinks you will say, “Against such love as this I cannot sin; against such tender mercy I will not rebel; I will return unto my first husband, for then it was better with me than now.”

I do not know, but I may be speaking very pointedly and personally to some here-I hope I am. I know that the most of you are not in this condition, and for this I thank my God. I pray you, however, lift up your hearts in prayer for those who are, and ask my Master that as this bow is drawn at a venture he may direct the arrow. There are some such here; I know there are. There are some here who have come this very morning with no idea that God would meet with them. You have put the reins upon your neck and you have given yourselves up. The restraints of morality can scarcely bind you, and yet once you prayed at the prayer meeting and sat at the sacramental table, and you put on the Lord Jesus Christ by profession in baptism; but oh! what are you now? Your life would not bear to be talked of, your conduct has become so gross and vile, you might have expected to have heard this morning some word that should have cut you off for ever from hope, but, instead of it, the silver trumpet sounds to-day with notes of love and pity. Return! return ! — your husband woos you over again-return! for then it was better with you than now.

V. Not to be longer on the point, let us observe in the fifth place, that There Is An Awful Contrast To All This.

There are some who prosper in this world until, like a wide-spread tree, they are cut down and cast into the fire. There are backsliders, who, never having had the root of the matter in them, go back unto their own ways, to the land from which they came out, and continue there for ever. 1 beseech you never trifle with backsliding. I have put God’s free grace in the boldest manner that I could just now, but oh! let me warn any man who would pervert that free grace into an excuse for sin; let me warn him against playing with backsliding. One man may roll down a precipice and may scarcely be injured, but I would not try it, for I might break my neck. One man took poison and he was hurried off to the hospital, and by the use of proper antidotes was spared, but I would not advise you to try it, nay I would beg you to put it away from you. Chosen vessels of mercy, notwithstanding their backslidings, are brought back; but ah! remember that nine out of ten of those who backslide never were God’s people. They go out from us because they were not of us, and this is the history of their lives, and may be the history of your life; ah! and may be the history of mine yet:-they joined the Church; they had been greatly impressed under a sermon; they were young, they knew little as yet of the trials of life:

being in the Church they walked consistently for years; they kept the faith; but the Church was cold and they grew cold too; they neglected week-day services; the closet was forsaken; family prayer was hardly attended to; then they forsook the sanctuary altogether, but they were still moral and upright; they began anon to associate with those whom once they avoided; their business went on well; they had risen from the lowest grade of society to occupy a middle position; they still prospered; gold accumulated; they were the successful people; there was a worm at the root of it all it is true, but nevertheless it looked so fair and seemed so well, the man did not like to remember that he ever had gone to that little meeting-house; he felt ashamed that ever he had associated with those whom once he knew to be the people of God; he went on still accumulating wealth, but one day he was found dead! Shall I pursue his history? In hell he lifts up his eyes in torments for ever, with this as the special worm that never could die to gnaw his conscience, that he did know in his head the way of righteousness, but had turned away from it in his heart. In letters of fire he sees written athwart that burning sky, “You Knew Your Duty But You Did It Not; you have come from the cup of the Lord to the cup of devils; you turned aside from the people of God to the children of Satan; you deliberately chose the evil and you forsook the good; you perished not as the ignorant perish, not as they perished Who were careless from their birth; not as those who were unvisited by pangs of conscience, or who knew not the Word, but you perished in the light of the gospel, with the sun of mercy shining upon your eye-balls; you perished, though you stood as it were on the very doorstep of heaven; you drifted back to hell in the teeth of a tide of mercy.” This, I say, may be your case and mine, if we be not really rooted and grounded in Christ: we may fall by little and little. We may even continue till we die, to be Church. members, and yet backslide in heart by slow degrees, until we become rotten through and through, and God casts us on the dunghill. I say by the special and miraculous mercy of God, his elect will be ingathered, but take ye heed, sirs, that ye build not on your profession, for profession is no proof of election. Ye must be born again, and only the man who continues to the end shall be saved. May we have such perseverance given us, for his name’s sake.

VI. With this last we conclude-Is Not This Subject A Very Solemn Warning To The People Of God?

What some do others may do. If one man falls, another may. If one professor turned out to be a hypocrite, so may another. If one minister reels from the pinnacle of honor and is dashed upon the rocks beneath, so may another. I want to make a personal, application of this to myself, and I pray my brethren in office behind me, venerable though some of them are in years, to remember that this may be their case. And you, my associates and fellow-members, many of you united to the Church before I was born, remember that age and habit are no security against apostasy. There must be the continual keeping and anointing of the Holy Spirit. I beseech you, and here I do beseech myself also, let us watch against the beginnings of backsliding. Let us take care of the little sins, O let us watch against the little coolnesses of heart. Brethren, no man backslides all at once. Few men who profess to be saints become outward sinners by one step; it is usually by little and by little. I pray you do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. Wake up from your coldness in private prayer if this has come over you. If your love to Christ has grown cold stay not in this state of danger, but pray to the Master to inflame your heart again. If any ot you have in any respect whatever fallen from your first love; if that old enthusiasm which was in us as a Church has departed from any of you, pray God to give it you back. If any of you are not bringing forth such fruit unto God as you used to do, O be suspicious of yourselves. Carnal security may be the heaven of fools, but it is the bane of believers.

“Be watchful, be vigilant, dangers may be,
In an hour when all seemeth securest to thee”

Especially at this time when the eyes of the world are fixed upon you as a Church, and upon me as a witness for God, let us walk carefully. If ever I might ask your prayers, nay, claim them as my right, it is now, I beseech you who love God, ask for me my Lord’s upholding grace that his servant may not flinch nor turn his back in the day of battle. Ask for yourselves the same, that when the fight shall grow less hot and there shall come an hour of calm and quiet thought, I, your pastor, and yourselves, my fellow-soldiers in Christ, may look down the ranks and say, “Not one comrade has fallen; the arrows flew thick about them, but their armor was complete ; the enemy was fierce, but the Master gave them strength equal to their day., He hath kept those whom he gave to us, and not one of them is lost.” May it be yours and mine on heaven’s starry steeps to look back upon the superlatively glorious grace which shall have kept us to the end, and brought us to the land where there shall be no more sin. Let us trust the Savior. There is the sinner s hope ; there is the saint’s strength, Let us cling to the cross again, and may Almighty grace keep us there, and so glorify itself for ever. Amen.

Hosea 2:14: Strange Dispensations and Matchless Consolations

NO. 2754
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, NOVEMBER 24TH, 1901,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK,
ON A LORD’S-DAY EVENING, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1859.

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.”—Hosea 2:14

THIS is one of the many instances in the Word of God of his free, rich, sovereign grace. The Lord has set the children of Israel before us as a great model. They are our beacons with regard to sin, but they are a pattern to us when we see in them the gracious dealings of a covenant-keeping God. Oft did they rebel, but just as often did the Lord forgive them. Frequently did he smite them with his rod, but he never turned them over to destruction, he still remembered his covenant made with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and he suffered not his faithfulness to fail.

We have, in. the prophecy of Hosea, an instance of what God thought of the sins of his people. He commands the prophet to speak in rough earnest language of their constant rebellion; and yet, no sooner has he directed Hosea to deal hardly with his erring spouse, than he seems to stop him in the full career of his furious prophecy, and bids him now address to her words of comfort. This is the connection in which our text is found set in the black letters of the volume of threatenings against guilty Israel. This precious jewel shines all the more brightly in the thick darkness of their sin and despair, this torch of love and kindness sheds a heavenly light, and makes their eyes and hearts rejoice.

Let us now turn. to these words of the Lord, and regard them under the following aspects. First, I see, in the text, the singular reasons for divine grace: “Therefore, behold!” I see, in the next place, the strange dispensations of divine grace: “I will bring her into the wilderness.” In the third place, matchless consolations: “I will speak comfortably unto her;” and, in the fourth place, sweet, persuasions: “I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.”

I. In the first place, we have, in our text, The Singular Reasons For Divine Grace: “Therefore, behold!”

It is not without cause that the word “therefore” is here inserted. We are to look to the context to find what are the premises from which a conclusion of mercy is drawn. You might naturally conceive, judging according to human logic, that the preceding verses described either Israel’s goodness, or else her abject repentance, if she has gone astray and rebelled; but, on the contrary, there is no mention of these things at all. They speak not of her goodness, but of her badness; and, in fact, they speak so strongly, that the prophet uses terms theft are never employed except after excessive iniquity. He charges Israel with whoredom, and speaks of her as having committed uncleanness with many lovers. This is strong language, and shows that he means to declare the excessive, character of her sin; and instead of speaking of her as being a penitent, he declares that she was still impenitent. Notwithstanding many, many providences, and the hedging up of her way with thorns, she would break through, and run after her many false lovers. And then, strange to say, contrary to all human reasoning, there comes the inference, it may so call it,—an inference of sunshine from a dark cloud, an inference of mercy from a whole mass of sin and iniquity. If the inference had been, “Therefore I will destroy her, I will cut her in pieces, and give her children to the sword, and her women to be carried away captive,” our reason could well have seen that it was the natural consequence, we could easily have seen that the logical terms agreed; but here it seems as if it were quite a non sequitur. How can it be that a “therefore” should spring up, when the previous verses have been filled with a description of her sins?

Here let us pause to remember that the reasons for God’s grace to us are far above all human reason, for he himself has told us, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Nay, I will go further than this, and say that, not only are God’s modes of reasoning far above our own, but they often seem as if they were even contradictory to ours. Where we should draw one inference, God draws the very opposite. See you poor penitent sinner; he “would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven; but he smote upon his breast, and cried, God be merciful to me a sinner.” What is our inference from this, looking at the publican as he stands there? Why; that he is a rebellious creature, and that God cannot and will not accept him, but must punish him. Doth God draw this inference. Nay; for “this man went down to his house justified.” See yonder Pharisee; with outstretched hands he stands, and prays thus with himself, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are,” and soon. What is our inference therefrom? Surely God will accept so good a man as this; he will be sure to justify a man so holy and so moral. Not so; for that man went down to his house without justification, unsatisfied, unblessed with the smile of heaven, while you sorrowing publican received God’s gracious forgiveness. We, ever since the Fall, have learned to reason badly; our reasoning faculty has been as much confused as any other power that we possessed; we have turned aside from the straightforward path, and we know not how to draw the true inference which God draws from our sins. So, then, it seemeth, from our text, that, so far from looking at any reason for mercy to anything that is good in man,—if God ever seeks in the creature a reason why he should show mercy, he looketh not to the good, but to the evil. When we come before God, it would be well if we. would always remember this. We are committing great folly if, when we are spreading our case before him, we dare for one moment to speak of ourselves as good or excellent. We shall never succeed in that way; he will not listen to us, for this plan has no power with him; but if, when we come to him, we can plead our sin and our misery, then shall we prevail Nay, we may even go the length of the psalmist, David, when he prayed, “For thy name’s sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity;”—and for a strange reason, you would say,—”for it is great.” He used the greatness of his sin as an argument why God should have mercy on him. O ye legalists, who are looking to yourselves for some arguments with which to prevail with God; O ye who look to your sacraments, to your outward forms, to your pious deeds and your almsgivings, for something that will move the heart of God; know this, that these things are no lever that can ever move him to love. Nothing but your sin and misery can ever stir his mercy, and you look to the wrong place when you look to your merits to find a plea why he should show pity upon you.

And yet, albeit that this reasoning seems extremely strange, I may use an illustration which will justify such reasoning as this in the mind of every thoughtful man. Here is a poor creature shivering in the cold with nakedness; and there is one who hath warm garments to give away. Will not the nakedness of the man be his claim to benevolence? If there be any generous soul who desireth to feed the hungry, it is not likely that he will bestow his bread upon one that hath abundance; but if he heareth a soul uttering the wail which is excited by the pangs of hunger, that very wail shall make him move his hands to supply the needed food. Generosity, liberality, and mercy know of nothing that can move them as misery can, and the very reverse argument is formed from that which men are so fond of using. They will go to God with a plea analogous to this,—as if a beggar should meet me in the street, and say, “Sir, give me charity; I am not very poor, I am not very hungry, therefore give me charity.” He would not use such a foolish argument as that. He, like a wise man, saith, “I am hungry, I am starving; therefore give me food.” Would that ye would use the like sensible argument, when ye come before God, and plead, not for your merit’s sake, but for your misery’s sake. Think not that you are to tip the arrows of your prayers with the feathers of your own merit; that shall never make them fly to heaven. It will be better if ye can wing them with a sense of your own miseries, for then they shall reach the heart of God, and he will send you the promised blessing in return. Strange reasoning, you say, this of grace,—that God will save men, not for their goodness, but, if there be any reason that can be found in them, it is rather for their sin and for their misery than for anything good in them.

If you will carefully look at the text again, you will notice that, after the word “therefore” there comes a word of exclamation: “behold!” Whenever we see the word “behold” in Scripture, we may be sure that there is something well worthy of our attention. It strikes me that Hosea, when the Lord commanded him to write this verse, was quite staggered. “Lord,” saith he, “how can this be?” He was filled with amazement. “I have been threatening thy children; thou hast told me to set their iniquities before their face, and now thou biddest me say, ’Therefore I will have mercy upon them.’” The conclusion seemed to him so strange, that he was utterly astonished; and the Lord permitted his servant to record his astonishment by putting in that word “behold.”

Nor do I think that is the only reason for the use of the word. It is also, I think, put there that we may admire the grace here displayed, and that we may remember the mercy of God, and especially the deep-rooted secret reasons for that mercy. They will continue to be, on earth, the theme of admiration; and, in heaven itself, the object of eternal astonishment. When we shall be permitted to see why God had mercy upon man, and especially why, out of the human race, he had mercy upon us,—why he chose us while others were suffered to perish,—we shall be compelled incessantly to lift up our hands in astonishment, and even in the heavenly city itself joy shall sometimes be superseded by wonder, and we shall, even there, be astonished to find such matchless grace displayed for such singular reasons. “Therefore, behold!” Again I would say to those who are trusting in themselves,—Give up your foolish hopes. Men and brethren, look not to the empty cisterns; but come away at once, to the fountain, the divine, kingly fount of sovereign grace, for there, and there only, it is that your hope of pardon can be realized; for, in yourself, there is nothing but that which would lead to your destruction, and only in Jehovah can reasons for salvation be discovered.

II. The second point is, The Strange Dispensations Of Divine Grace.

God is about to have mercy upon poor fallen Israel, so what does he say? “I Will allure her, and baring her into the wilderness.” This may seem to some a strange way of showing his love, yet it is not an unusual one, for it is the common method by which God manifests his love towards his chosen ones. You will, perhaps, smile when I make the observation that there was nothing which a Roman slave more anxiously desired than to have a box on the ear from his master. “That was a singular desire,” you will say; yet that box on the ear was the object of the morning and evening prayer of many a, slave in Rome; for, you must know, if a master